when Wendy met Romney
Back in the day (1997? 1998?) I was working as an office temp while going to college. One of the places I was sent to was an autoclave and sterile equipment manufacturer. I was stationed at the fax machine, with not so much orders to keep mum as with an expectation that I'd have no idea what what going on.
I could tell that things were tense. Some sort of auditing firm had been called in by the investors since the company was in financial trouble.
Something nagged me about that job. Today, I looked the place up; isn't Google wonderful? And the company name was OnGuard. The address was correct, the timing is right. Here is the SEC filing on their 1996 Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
Anyhow, I think the whole place had 30 employees, including the office which had three officers, a secy, and four sales people. Why then, did they need an eight-cup espresso machine in their kitchenette, in a "break room" that was fancier than anything I've seen even to this day? Since it was my area of expertise, I looked at the occupational safety of the facility with a critical eye. They had the latest and the greatest of everything, to the point where they were not getting a return on their safety dollar. Safety can be overdone: their manufacturing staff was tiny and did not need one tenth that many ear plugs, that much equipment, that many safety doodads. When I caught them discharging water after their manufacturing process without proper EPA safeguards (just a regulatory violation) I decided to test the "auditor" suits by mentioning it to one of them who struck me as bright, hard-working and personable: friendly and intelligent and yet someone who I would not want to cross. His response had me leaning to their wanting to shut things down rather than fix them.
Eventually, the "auditors" discovered that the firm--which was losing money for the investors hand-over-fist--had a major patent in dispute and when the investors won undisputed legal rights to that patent (I saw the faxes), the guys in the suits from the "auditing firm" in the conference room were all excited, like they'd won the Superbowl or something. It was pretty clear to me that they wanted to sell the patent to get the investors' money back, which would (duh, it was for their major product) close the firm. When the principal investors and the guys in the suits had the OnGuard sales force turn in their cell phones, and ordered a security guard for the building, I called the temp agency and told them I thought the place was about to go out of business ala Chapter 7, and they might not get paid. Heck, if I was looking out for the investors I might have shut OnGuard down. They were p*ssing away money like no tomorrow. The temp agency yanked me and assigned me elsewhere, excessively grateful.
The suit I mentioned the EPA technical violation to looked exactly like Mitt Romney. Less white in the sideburns, but this was around 15 years ago. Same mannerisms you see on TV. I'm convinced it was him, and that Bain Capital was brought in to see if they could revitalize this business. They could not, so they closed it down.
This is not a political post. This is a memoir. Those of you who want to praise or lambaste Mitt Romney can go elsewhere, because I am closing comments to this post. I recall he had no fangs or hooves; neither did he have a halo. I am not sure who is going to win the presidency, but if Romney does I suspect he will deal with any budget problems. Not sure what else he'd do, but he sure looked competent to deal with out-of-control overspending.
We'll see.
I could tell that things were tense. Some sort of auditing firm had been called in by the investors since the company was in financial trouble.
Something nagged me about that job. Today, I looked the place up; isn't Google wonderful? And the company name was OnGuard. The address was correct, the timing is right. Here is the SEC filing on their 1996 Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
Anyhow, I think the whole place had 30 employees, including the office which had three officers, a secy, and four sales people. Why then, did they need an eight-cup espresso machine in their kitchenette, in a "break room" that was fancier than anything I've seen even to this day? Since it was my area of expertise, I looked at the occupational safety of the facility with a critical eye. They had the latest and the greatest of everything, to the point where they were not getting a return on their safety dollar. Safety can be overdone: their manufacturing staff was tiny and did not need one tenth that many ear plugs, that much equipment, that many safety doodads. When I caught them discharging water after their manufacturing process without proper EPA safeguards (just a regulatory violation) I decided to test the "auditor" suits by mentioning it to one of them who struck me as bright, hard-working and personable: friendly and intelligent and yet someone who I would not want to cross. His response had me leaning to their wanting to shut things down rather than fix them.
Eventually, the "auditors" discovered that the firm--which was losing money for the investors hand-over-fist--had a major patent in dispute and when the investors won undisputed legal rights to that patent (I saw the faxes), the guys in the suits from the "auditing firm" in the conference room were all excited, like they'd won the Superbowl or something. It was pretty clear to me that they wanted to sell the patent to get the investors' money back, which would (duh, it was for their major product) close the firm. When the principal investors and the guys in the suits had the OnGuard sales force turn in their cell phones, and ordered a security guard for the building, I called the temp agency and told them I thought the place was about to go out of business ala Chapter 7, and they might not get paid. Heck, if I was looking out for the investors I might have shut OnGuard down. They were p*ssing away money like no tomorrow. The temp agency yanked me and assigned me elsewhere, excessively grateful.
The suit I mentioned the EPA technical violation to looked exactly like Mitt Romney. Less white in the sideburns, but this was around 15 years ago. Same mannerisms you see on TV. I'm convinced it was him, and that Bain Capital was brought in to see if they could revitalize this business. They could not, so they closed it down.
This is not a political post. This is a memoir. Those of you who want to praise or lambaste Mitt Romney can go elsewhere, because I am closing comments to this post. I recall he had no fangs or hooves; neither did he have a halo. I am not sure who is going to win the presidency, but if Romney does I suspect he will deal with any budget problems. Not sure what else he'd do, but he sure looked competent to deal with out-of-control overspending.
We'll see.